


Bildungsroman

by Goldmonger



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Dean Winchester's A+ Parenting, Family Bonding, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Jack Has Issues, don't we all
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-02
Updated: 2020-09-02
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:06:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26243128
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Goldmonger/pseuds/Goldmonger
Summary: Two former Antichrists, a car ride, and an amusement park. This is the best day of Jack's short life.
Relationships: Jack Kline & Sam Winchester
Comments: 19
Kudos: 70





	Bildungsroman

**Author's Note:**

> Set after s13e02, where I'm pretending the gang had a couple of months to adjust before Castiel was resurrected.

_Blue colours feel good._

_Music throbs._

_Fruity soap chokes you._

_Tears taste like salt._

_Neck hurts from being curled around the computer._

_Blood flow only lasts for three seconds. That blood tastes like coins._

_Hair falls into your face after two months, three weeks, one day, six hours, and forty-seven minutes._

_Sam isn’t your father. Castiel wasn’t your father. Dean definitely isn’t your father._

“Jack? Got some eggs here for you, buddy.”

_Eggs are soft. Like skin that breaks._

Jack opened his eyes not to a memory, but to the kitchen bunker, where he’d been sitting in silence for the past twenty-one minutes. Sam was still puttering around making breakfast, and Jack realised with a jolt of pride that the list of things he knew for certain was getting exponentially longer, long enough to take him through their morning routine. He scooped up some eggs from the plate that had been deposited in front of him, and shovelled it into his mouth.

“These are awesome,” he said thickly, still chewing.

Sam looked pleased, dishes clattering as he moved them off the drying rack to the cupboard.

“Hey, thanks. This is just what I throw together when we’re in dire need of groceries.”

Jack slipped from his stool at the counter and picked up one of the eggs still in the carton, his fingers swiping over its cool, matte surface. He squeezed it and it broke, clear liquid spilling down his wrist.

_Eggs are hard. Sometimes._

“Awesome,” he repeated. Sam gently wiped at his arm, handing him the towel once the shattered egg was tipped into the trash.

“Messy,” he corrected him, but he was smiling, so Jack knew he wasn’t really annoyed.

“What’s for breakfast, Betty Crocker?” grumbled Dean as he sauntered through the kitchen door, his hair still slightly mussed from sleep.

_Voice sounds like cocked gun looks._

“The usual. How many?”

“Two. No, three,” said Dean, yawning as he went about pouring coffee. Jack had already skittered over to the sink, washing his hands thoroughly enough to strip them to the bone, but he focused a little more on the tiny icy bubbles streaming over his knuckles. Maybe he could will himself inside one of them.

He shuddered, recalling a hole in a field, his power splitting the earth with almost no effort on his part. Maybe he shouldn’t focus quite so hard.

“Jack? You want to start back up on your research for the day?” Sam’s tone was casual, his hand lighting on Jack’s shoulder. His body was between Jack and Dean and angled slightly towards the door.

_Touch feels like_ _breakfast tastes._

“I – yeah,” said Jack gratefully. “I could – I mean I could show you what I found later on?” He made sure it was a question. He knew Sam had actual work to do, but nothing made him as happy as seeing Sam’s eyes crease at Jack’s analysis of the Lord of the Rings or his animated commentary on why Beethoven was infinitely preferable to Bach. (More energy. Jack liked to illustrate this by jumping up and down a lot as he explained.)

“Sure thing. We can go through that comic book you’ve been telling me about.”

“The Incredible Hulk,” said Jack seriously, almost forgetting Dean was in the room in his excitement. “Okay! I’ll get back to it now.”

Sam patted him on the arm as he left, giving him a small thrill of joy that was barely quelled by Dean’s eyes following him out the room, trained on him like searchlights.

The computer hummed quietly where he’d left it, nestled in his blankets and swimming with multi-coloured cubes that kept bouncing into each other and into the corners of the dark screen. He poked the smooth rectangle on the keyboard and the cubes disappeared, Sam’s music playlist right where he left it. The Chain. Weighty Ghost. The Boys Are Back In Town.

“Pop culture is one kind of education,” Sam had said with a smile that was really a laugh. “We’ll call this research, at least until we figure out if you should legitimately be in school.”

Jack laid back and put Sam’s headphones on, plucking one of the dime store comic books from the box under his bed and opening it to a man screaming in rage, his eyes a bright, venomous green.

He thought of Sam’s first lessons, pictures and words referencing animals and concepts and other things that he didn’t know he knew about until he was looking at them, and the names sprang fully-formed to his lips. He knew about green.

_“Don’t make me angry,”_ the man on the page warned, his face twisted and terrible.

He also knew about anger.

Jack turned to the laptop and clicked pause on the wild smashing music that was making him feel a bit uneasy, searching instead for something by one of the musicians from the country of France, all old men with snowy hair and glum expressions. There were his favourites: Debussy, who made him feel like he was walking on stars, and Saint-Saëns, who seemed to chase him through a woodland. He decided on some numbered symphony by the latter, settling back once again.

_“Hulk only fights those that threaten him!”_

The comic wasn’t as entertaining as the others with Hulk had been formerly, maybe because Jack knew the story too well and couldn’t abide rereading. That must be it, he decided. His eidetic and photographic memory was only truly useful when he wanted to impress Sam with details of some of the arcane lore he’d found about the bunker library; he’d once recited an entire exorcism in Latin after only skimming through it briefly. Sam had been enthralled, beaming and congratulating him on his skill when he’d finished. Dean, hovering in the back, had snorted, which still confused Jack as to its meaning. He knew it couldn’t be good though, because Sam’s smile had slid from his face and been drawn into a scowl. The two brothers were able to communicate almost imperceptibly, but Jack had started to pick up on it. They so often seemed to be at odds, though he didn’t think that had always been the case.

Tinkling piano was lulling Jack to sleep despite the earliness of the hour when Sam knocked hesitantly on his door. Jack startled back to alertness, the comic book that had been flat on his chest falling to the floor with a gentle smack.

“Hey. Sorry to bother you.”

“No, it’s all right,” he said, scrambling up. “I should probably have been studying, anyway.”

“Your comic?” Sam sat at the end of his bed, leaning forward to pick it up and peering at it with interest. “Oh! The origin stories are always interesting.”

“I meant researching lore,” said Jack, eking out the middle vowel the way he’d heard the brothers do it. “Working on a case, even. I do want to help.”

“Yeah, about that,” said Sam warily, and Jack’s heart slithered all the way down to his socks. “Jack, I know I’ve been talking about taking you on a case, but I think it’s still a bit early for that.”

“But -,”

“Hold on. I think we could do something else for your first real outing as, you know, a person in society. Get you out of the bunker for a while.”

Jack was stumped by this. “Like what?”

Sam’s smile was tentative, but hopeful.

*

“An amusement park?” Dean’s voice dripped with incredulity, his frown deepening the nascent lines of his face. “What the hell for?”

“For fun,” said Sam, donning his jacket and nodding for Jack to do the same. “So do you want to come? Or are we going to have to kidnap the Impala?”

“You could friggin’ try,” muttered Dean, his jaw clenched. “We have possible spirits in Detroit, and a tip from Garth about a banshee in Peoria – all on top of the Prince of Hell’s armies on our asses – and you want to ditch to see clowns? Have I entered the Upside Down?”

“We’ve given him every warding enchantment we could find,” said Sam, more than a little steel injected into the words. “One day away from the bunker won’t hurt. We can’t stay in here forever.” Jack was zipped into a windbreaker and fidgeting by the stairs, and Sam brushed past him with the barest tap on his shoulder. “We’ll be back sometime this evening.”

Dean didn’t respond, so Sam stuck out his hand. After hesitating, Dean dropped the keys into his palm with a glower like a brewing storm.

“C’mon, Jack.” They turned to go down the stairs, and Jack couldn’t help the excitement that had started to coalesce inside him, thoroughly obscuring the solemn disbelief that the outing would actually happen. It wasn’t that he thought Sam would break his word, but Dean’s growl had always been louder than any promise Sam could make. Or so it had seemed.

“Sam.”

They stopped before they had made it halfway to the basement level, and both glanced back at Dean, who was biting his lip like someone who was fighting to keep a shout inside.

“Those protective spells won’t ward off demons and angels for long.”

“I know.” Sam sounded irritable.

“The trunk is stocked with holy oil.” His eyes slid over to Jack. “For anything that comes at you.”

He turned on his heel and disappeared from view into the library. Sam’s expression was black as night as he herded Jack down the hallway and into the massive garage, sweeping past the motorcycles and multi-coloured cars that had been sitting gathering dust for decades. Jack followed Sam to the Impala, his confusion switching rapidly to delight.

“Can I get in front?” he asked, almost tripping over his own feet in his enthusiasm. Sam acquiesced readily, and he rushed to get in the passenger seat without wrenching the door too much. He didn’t want to know what would happen if he accidentally took it off.

“There’s so much room up here.” He let himself settle, breathing in the distinct molecules of dry leather and old blood as he trailed his hands over the upholstery, the dashboard, the car door. It smelled and felt so wholly of the Winchesters that he wondered if he should even be inside it at all, invading it, muddying the air. Sam didn’t seem to share his misgivings, starting the car with a chuckle.

“Yeah, you can pretty much live in this thing.” His smile, as it was so often, was sad.

Sam let Jack press the button on the remote that opened the garage doors, and they emerged into the cool autumn morning with a rumble, the white-gold sun blinding in a clear, pale blue sky. Jack blinked furiously to clear his streaming eyes as he fumbled to press the button that closed the garage doors again. He watched them fold over with a groan and become hidden by a cluster of bushes as the car slunk out of the natural cover. Sam made a sharp turn and suddenly they had roared out of a dirt path and onto a main road. Jack took the opportunity to press his nose against the window, watching the fields whip past, letting the morning roll away like the yellow expanses around them. Sam let him pick the choice of music, but after some combing through the glove box, he was distressed to learn that it was devoid of Sam’s playlists. Even in tape form.

“There’s only banging music in here,” he despaired, and Sam stifled a laugh. “Where’s Frank Ocean?”

“Sorry, buddy. That’s the Dean hall of fame in there.”

Jack pondered this, unsure why the situation had upset him so quickly. He was used to being surrounded by a certain kind of entertainment – gentle music or heroic stories or fascinating facts. This was different. He felt like he had set foot in Dean’s room, or another forbidden place. The car seemed smaller, darker, despite Sam’s tall frame folded beside him. He felt a prickle on his neck, like he was being watched. Or breaking out in a nervous sweat.

“Isn’t there anything else?” He disliked the tinge of desperation to his voice, but it moved Sam, who glanced at him in surprise.

“Of course, Jack. Here.” He flicked on the radio, twiddling the dial one-handed until the static fizzled into some pop ballad that Jack had shuffled through online before.

“You can mess with that all you want. Find a good station.”

Jack ended up tuning into a debate on child rearing on NPR, which held them rapt for a while, until the topic eased into the consequences of neglect, and Sam asked him to change it. Jack then discovered a local station with some pleasantly crooning jazz, which made him grin for no reason, and loosened the subtle tension in Sam’s shoulders. It wasn’t long before they were both bobbing their heads, melting in the last of the summer’s warmth and humming, without meaning to.

Sam didn’t drive as fast as Dean, which Jack found he liked very much. There wasn’t as much noise from the engine, and with the slower pace he was able to identify some species of trees, as well as several birds, and a flitting blur of brown by the side of the road: it turned out to be a lone hare, which sped from them in a timely manner, loping into the horizon between culled stalks of corn. Jack thought he might want to get to know the name of everything in nature, every piece of this world that God had made. It was pretty, he thought over and over again, his head against the glass. God had made something very pretty, and he’d made it for others, not for himself. He didn’t like to think about the Bible much, but that part was all right. It caused him to think about breakfast eggs, and soft sad smiles, and that made him feel better too.

The temperature rose with the sun, and he soon shed his windbreaker, and then his sweatshirt. Without comment Sam flipped a switch beside the steering wheel that sent cool air up to ruffle his hair and t-shirt. He couldn’t stop beaming.

“This is great,” he said at some point, the fields having given way to a town, briefly, and then more fields. They were in Kansas, Sam had told him long ago, and Kansas was made of fields. It seemed like they were lost within them, only Sam kept making decisive turns and stops and starts, and Jack knew that meant there was a destination in mind.

“I’m glad,” Sam replied, the corners of his eyes crinkling. Jack had already chattered for an hour about how great he thought superheroes and Jedi and hot-dogs were as well, to varying degrees, yet he didn’t seem tired of the reports. “Are you sure the amusement park is okay? There are baseball games and national parks, and all that stuff.”

Jack was bouncing his leg, ecstatic. He’d only seen evidence of such things on the computer. “I’d go to any of those. All of it sounds awesome. _Awesome.”_

Sam gave him a look that Jack struggled to decipher. He wondered briefly if he’d chosen wrongly, if he should have picked a sports game to attend, but then reassured himself. Sam wouldn’t test him like that. He would tell him straight out if he was doing something incorrectly.

“Sorry,” Sam said, like Jack had been broadcasting his doubt. “You just – I forget you pick up on everything.” He shook his head, a quirk to his lips. “Dean says ‘awesome’ a lot too.”

Jack felt abruptly chilled, goosebumps rising where the air conditioner had once soothed hot discomfort. He faced the windshield, shifting in a way he hoped wasn’t too disruptive. He didn’t want to be a problem. He wouldn’t be a problem.

“Oh,” he managed to say, when he sensed concern radiating from his left. “That’s – um. Oh.”

He resolved not to say ‘awesome’ again. What if he’d said it in front of Dean and Dean didn’t like it? What if Sam wasn’t there when he slipped up?

Sam tactfully didn’t let the awkwardness linger. He shifted the subject of conversation to Jack’s Men of Letters studies, specifically the theory of Aarakocra remains being used in spiritual healing rituals, and some Thracian myth that contributed to the hypothesis. It derailed Jack’s souring mood, so thoroughly that he was able to expound upon the related notes he’d rooted through in the past week. He pretended not to notice the way Sam’s brow furrowed as he spoke, like he was privately considering something deeply troubling. Jack was worried, again, if _he_ was the trouble.

He recalled holes in his shirt, his electrified nerves, the tingle of calamity in his fingertips. He recalled –

_If it comes to killing you,_ eyes sharp, narrow, breath rank with beer, _I’ll be the one to do it._

It was all far away, Jack thought, all that watching, all that anger. He refused to defer to his list, as he usually did – his recollections of what he knew included memories of the bad things too.

Jack cleared his throat many times. The Aarakocra has many uses, he said, more than once. Dead, sure, but alive too. It can be left alive. If it’s not violent, it can be left alive.

Sam turned down the jazz and kept him talking until the clock on the dashboard told them they had crested into the afternoon, and Jack had learned from signposts that they had also arrived at the city of Wichita. It was a curiously flat place, just as the rest of the state seemed to be; the few multi-storey buildings were squat and cement-coloured, towering over the retail outlets and restaurants and parks that had Jack squishing his nose into the window again, drinking the sights in thirstily. Since he was born, he’d been kept mostly to the bunker, which Sam promised him was for his safety and the safety of others. Jack didn’t like to be a nuisance and he definitely didn’t want to press the issue of his potential danger to innocent people, so he agreed readily. It hadn’t bothered him much – he loved watching cartoons, reading, and helping Sam. But this, he thought greedily, he wouldn’t miss this for anything.

“We’ll have a few hours here,” Sam said, as Jack watched a group of walking teenagers fly past, their laughter silent to him. “Probably get the chance to see most of the park. It’s not very big.” He huffed, and Jack looked away from a couple swinging joined hands to see that he was squinting ahead at the road, almost sheepish. “It’s just a Kansas amusement park, nothing special, but it’s a chance to – to see something new. You know? It’s not all angels and demons on the warpath.”

Jack had hoped as much. “There’s also normal humans,” he said with confidence, and Sam agreed.

“Normal, and not so normal. The world’s a diverse place.”

“And _pretty_ ,” said Jack, practically bouncing in his seat with withheld energy. The serene car ride with no-one but Sam had already made his week – month – _life_ , and the day wasn’t even over. Everything he could see passing by was evidence of the rest of God’s wonderful world, sitting out there as though waiting for him.

Sam was smiling, and he cast it easily in Jack’s direction, making him feel like a cat that had wandered into a sunbeam. “Maybe I can work out a way to get us to Six Flags someday. Or Disney. Or Hawaii.”

“They sound great,” exclaimed Jack, the names unfamiliar, yet tantalising. “Anywhere sounds great!”

“Somewhere else,” said Sam wistfully. He shook himself, and forced a chuckle. “Dean would need all the whiskey for a twelve hour flight over the Pacific.”

Jack froze, thinking back to _anger,_ thinking back to _watching_.

_I’ll be the one to do it._

“I’ll be good,” Jack blurted. “I’ll be really good. And we can go to all those places. When I’m good.” He had the suspicion that he was missing something in his oath, but he didn’t know what else to say when confronted with Sam’s generosity. He was trying to be on his best behaviour, and he was fairly certain Sam knew that. Even Dean had to know that, despite his scoffs and glares when he assumed Jack wasn’t paying attention.

Sam’s hands clenched on the steering wheel, and that furrow appeared on his forehead again. He turned carefully off two intersections before replying, enough time that Jack was starting to get distracted by the throng of pedestrians. He didn’t want to ignore Sam, though, because he thought that his discomfort was important to consider. Jack tried his best to diminish it whenever he could.

“Sounds great,” said Sam abruptly, and he reached over to pat Jack’s knee. Jack inflated with hope, then swelled to almost bursting when he saw the large rectangular sign wedged between a fire hydrant and a streetlight pole. ‘All Star Adventures’, it read. It dashed past like everything, but Jack didn’t mind. He had the ballooning letters memorised, the neat directions too.

“That’s it!” he gasped. “That’s its name, right?” Sam had described it to him earlier, clearly managing his expectations but encouraged by previously read reviews.

“That’s it.”

Jack nearly vibrated, almost hyperactively alert as they covered the final five minutes of the journey, swinging inside the gates of was what advertised as ‘ALL STAR ADVENTURES. WICHITA’S ONLY AMUSEMENT PARK. ALL ATTRACTIONS WEATHER AND BUSINESS PERMITTING.’

“Wow,” breathed Jack, as Sam struggled to keep his face neutral.

“At least it’s a nice day,” Sam offered, and Jack was about to agree wholeheartedly when he saw Sam pointing upwards, and remembered the sun. It was streaming down between puffs of thick white cloud, illuminating the busy park. Families poured in and out of the parking lot as Sam cruised around, searching for an open spot. Jack spied one first, and they both started wheedling with the small silver car that was racing them to it, shouting in triumph when they nosed into the space a hair’s breadth before the other driver, who looked murderous as he pulled away. Jack was cackling, and Sam failed to maintain his composure as he arranged the Impala between a sleek red minivan and a wall.

“Do not tell Dean about this,” he said, snorting in amusement. “He already thinks my driving sucks.”

“You drive perfectly,” insisted Jack. “And I would never tell Dean _anything_.”

The comment emerges more embittered than Jack had intended, his tone falling short of Sam’s temporary lightness, a buoyancy that was now fading away. He reddened, and focused on opening his door rather than receive the full force of Sam’s sombre, remorseful eyes. He wasn’t used to hating, but he hated when Sam shrank like that. It made him feel like something that caused harm.

“Jack,” said Sam, rising to his full height on the other side of the car, “I didn’t mean – are you –,”

“Great!” said Jack, too loudly. He could see a myriad of colours beyond the boundaries of the parking lot, and it was much more appealing than wherever his thoughts had been headed. He wanted to see the attractions and the milling people so badly, suddenly, that it caught his breath. He wanted what they had. He wanted to roam around a beautiful place inside the secure bubble of a family, ordinary and invisible.

He sidled up to the trunk as Sam came around it, car keys in one fist.

“This is fun,” said Jack, though it sounded more like a question. Sam sighed, and brought his arm up to squeeze Jack’s shoulder, once. The contact straightened his spine, let Sam’s scent of old books and minty shampoo wash over him in a calming wave.

“This is fun,” Sam confirmed, and directed him towards the park entrance.

All Star Adventures was apparently one of the few locations in the city that could conceivably entertain children for the bulk of a Saturday, and so Jack found himself edging around kids that ranged from screaming toddlers to whining teenagers, parents radiating impatience as they trailed or led their broods around the grounds. The rides were shining in lurid primary colours, all behemoths to Jack, who had never before beheld structures of that size twisted into such incredible shapes. They spiralled and spun as he and Sam strolled, the riders above them emitting screeches of delight, not what he knew to be fear, or anguish. It was a strange new reality to him, and he found true excitement again, roused from where the crowds and heat had quelled him into a stunned stupor.

Jack perked up with particular enthusiasm at the warm aromas of French fries and chicken wings, the product of stalls selling fast food that patrons bought and clutched in greasy wrappers, the condensation of soda bottles trickling through their fingers; it made him salivate for something he’d never had, holding his attention until he stumbled over his own feet and had to be steadied by Sam. He’d had junk food before, candy and chocolate of all varieties, but it was something else entirely to see whole meals of the stuff devoured so carelessly by so many. Jack ogled, and dodged ice-cream puddles all the way to the main thoroughfare, their tacky white and brown surfaces congealing under the sun. He thought it was all a mess. He also thought it was utterly fantastic.

“I want to do everything,” he whispered, his roving eyes failing to settle on any one attraction, person, or pretzel. He was overwhelmed with desire, a need to possess and _consume_ that blocked out all other senses until Sam’s hand landed on his shoulder.

“Let’s start with something traditional,” he said, steering him to the left of a brightly-coloured wooden track toting a cart. “You know what mini-golf is?”

Mini-golf turned out to be a game played upon an acre of partitioned green plastic, a spiky surface that Sam informed him was called ‘astroturf’. The plastic was marked by tiny red flags, underneath which were six-inch holes; the purpose of the game was to knock small plastic balls into the holes with the least amount of effort. It was a simple enough directive, impeded only by the copious quantity of artificial dragons, inclined tunnels, and bollards shaped like men in top hats.

“This would be much easier if they moved those decorations out of the way,” Jack groused, though he mostly only said it to see Sam try to hide his grin. He knew he was slow to pick up on obvious things sometimes, but his querulous nature never seemed to bother Sam.

“The idea is to use the decorations to get the ball in the hole,” Sam explained patiently, using his own stick – club, Jack remembered – to gently tap a neon pink ball. It sped into a dragon’s gaping mouth, emerging from its tail ten feet away. They both watched as it circled the flagged hole for several seconds before tipping into it. “C’mon. Let’s try a weirder one.”

“Did you play this before?” asked Jack, as they trudged past a pair of women and their squalling toddler. He beamed at the baby, almost as an afterthought, and she quietened instantly. Her parents gawked after him as he kept walking, happily balancing his club over his shoulder.

“Years and years ago,” admitted Sam, who hadn’t noticed. “Dean and I once found a paranormal-themed course beside this one motel, and we played for like, five hours.” He chewed his lip, lost in some memory. “And our dad took us one time, with our uncle Bobby. I think it was Bobby’s birthday, but he wanted to do something with all of us. I was pretty young, too small for the clubs. I remember Bobby kept letting us cheat.”

Jack dwelled on this. “Cheating is like lying,” he said, curious.

Sam smiled. “Not all the time.”

“Oh.” Jack didn’t get it, but then it was his turn to hit his ball under a row of small arches and off a trampoline across a pond into a hole, so he let that occupy him for a while. On Sam’s turn, after Jack’s wobbly victory on his eighth try, he took the liberty of imagining Sam as a child, vacationing around America and beyond – visiting spectacles even better than mini-golf. He would have been envious if it were anyone else.

“Did you go to Six Flags and Disney and Hawaii as well?” he asked, earnest.

Sam hit his ball, and it flew between the obstacles with near preternatural speed. Neon pink rattled into the hole.

“I went to Six Flags myself, for a few days,” he said, stepping onto the walkway that separated the holes, so that the tittering teenage girls behind them could have a turn. Jack was confused to find them goggling at Sam as they departed, like he was another wondrous feature of the amusement park. Then one of them waved at him, and when he waved back the two of them broke down into laughter. He felt uncomfortably oblivious.

He caught up to Sam’s side. “Just Six Flags?” he asked. “But not the others?”

“No. They’re more like pipe dreams. Places we wanted to go as kids, when we had no money, no house, or – well, anything, really.” He looked down at Jack. “It’s stuff we put off doing for years because of some bigger problem. I guess I don’t want to do that anymore.”

“Well, your mini-golf was fun,” said Jack kindly, even though he knew his skills weren’t the best. It was the kind of calm activity that Sam liked, and Jack liked doing those no matter what. “That means wherever you want to go next will be fun too.”

“I’ll let you pick when you’re older,” said Sam. “You’ll have a thousand ideas, I’ll bet.”

“When I’m older,” echoed Jack, recalling his adolescent face in the spotted mirror in his room, and the wounds that sealed up across his torso without scarring. For him, the idea of getting older was familiar and disconcerting, like reading the Bible, or using his powers. Would he ever have lines like Sam and Dean one day? Or was he finished growing, stuck the way he was now?

“In the future,” Sam amended, as though he could tell Jack was feeling sick, all of a sudden. “You’ve got a long future ahead of you, Jack.”

“Sure,” said Jack, though the syllable had come out turgid, like something he hacked up. He ploughed ahead to the next hole, and the next, keeping up a running commentary on the garish beauty of the course until Sam seemed to be assured that he was back to being invested. Jack was enormously relieved. He didn’t want to ruin their day by being scared of something he didn’t actually understand, no matter what his dumb gut told him.

They played all twelve holes of the course, and Jack handed his club to the attendant at the end of the last one with no small amount of preening. Sam had fared better, but he made sure to praise Jack’s efforts, regaling him with stories about golf games that took place on courses that sprawled for miles.

“How big are the dragons?” he asked, awed, and Sam floundered for long enough that Jack was dragging him towards a swing-set before he could answer.

The swings were arranged in a circle on a rotating machine, the momentum of the engine making them careen round and round in a dizzying whirl, almost twenty feet in the air. Jack only had to turn wide eyes on Sam for a moment before Sam was paying the attendant, and they were waiting with Jack primed on the balls of his feet. It seemed like hours until they were finally strapped into metal seats, Sam on the outer seat to Jack’s right. He gripped the bar in front of his stomach, and barely had time to get his bearings when they were being lifted – and then they were _flying_ –

Jack could make people fly. His father could fly. Castiel, who he had never seen or touched but had known like his own mind, had loved flying almost as much as he had once loved God. This flight was not divine, the way those abilities had been, but there was an aspect to it that caused his heart to pound, his lungs to fill, his glee to gush out in a whoop that made Sam laugh. Jack could see over half the park, could see hundreds of heads and the gleam of metal and the billowing of canvas in the breeze that was picking up. He could see the tallest buildings in the city and the shortest, houses in a residential estate and suburbs on the outskirts. He could see bustling, busy life. He felt that strange desire again, but he didn’t feel hollowed, this time – he felt almost sated.

The swings slowed sooner than expected, and Jack clambered out of his metal seat with a pang of sorrow. He knew now, what freedom was like, true freedom. No wonder Castiel had mourned his wings, once upon a time.

“Worth it?”

Jack bounded up next to Sam, expecting himself to glow gold. He was overflowing with gratitude. “That was the best. The _best_.”

“Wanna try to beat it?” Sam had his hands in his pockets, but some mischief lurked at the corner of his mouth, entrancing Jack.

“Is there anything that could beat that?”

Sam laid his arm across his shoulders again, and Jack leaned into it. His cheeks were starting to ache from how much he’d been grinning.

“Let’s see.”

They raced in go-karts, sleek, flat vehicles that Jack crashed three times, once ending up under an avalanche of tyres by the track boundary that had Sam and four attendants scrabbling to dig him out. Jack soon gave up on trying to convince Sam of his perfect health after that incident, simply yanking him over to the Rock-O-Plane, which swerved them in dizzying loops almost as high up as the swings; Sam then insisted on the more sedate pace of the carousel, another rotating mechanical marvel that wasn’t sturdy enough to accommodate Sam’s massive height, but held Jack and eight bewildered, staring children just fine; Jack then scampered up to the Tilt-A-Whirl and the Dragon Coaster in quick succession, followed diligently by an exasperated but good-humoured Sam all the while. He easily made friends along the way, discussing the rides with Maddie and Franklin and Amina and Scott, kids whose parents tugged them away before he could tell them about Sam, or his powers, or the bunker. Later, over hotdogs and milkshakes, Sam let him know that was probably for the best.

“They wouldn’t have understood,” he explained, his hotdog dehydrating on the table between them, though the sun and its heat had vanished behind a wall of marshmallow clouds a while ago. “They don’t know about our world.”

“Our world,” repeated Jack, and he decided that he liked the sound of that, even though it was a pity he couldn’t bring friends into it. Maybe he could change the rules a bit, if it was his world as well.

He sucked loudly on the straw buried in a paper cup of chocolate cream, and pointed behind Sam. “Next one?”

Sam turned to glance at the ride Jack was indicating, then whipped around so fast his bottle of water tipped over. Jack set it upright, and saw that Sam had gone worryingly pale, his eyes flicking around without making landfall.

“Sam? Are you okay?”

“Fine.” Sam cleared his throat, his voice gone unusually high. “Not the – um, not the C-Clown-A-Round ride, though, if that’s all right? We’ll um – we’ll find another one. I don’t want to stop you – if you – I mean, if you really – want – if you want to go on it –,”

“I don’t want to go on it,” said Jack hurriedly, panicked at the sight of Sam in such obvious distress. “I’m sorry, we don’t have to go on it. What’s wrong? What’s the matter?” He looked around surreptitiously. Was there a rogue demon or angel he’d missed, gunning for them?

“Nothing,” said Sam, exhaling in a rush. “Just felt a bit – a bit nauseous for a minute there. It happens, sometimes, in – carnivals, and places like this.”

Jack blinked. “But – you said amusement parks were fun,” he pressed, slightly hysterical. The last time he’d seen Sam this scared, Jack had been feral in the corner of a bedroom, about to unleash his power on him. He was suddenly, painfully grateful that Dean wasn’t with them. Given Sam’s state, he might have shot Jack just as a precaution.

“They are! I’m sorry, Jack, it’s just an old phobia. I’m just being stupid.”

“It’s not stupid if you’re afraid,” said Jack miserably. He set down his drink. “Was it the rides? Did they scare you?”

Sam chuckled in a weighted sort of way. “No, nothing like that. It’s the – it’s the – the – clowns, actually.” He shrugged, self-deprecating. “Dean’s always telling me how ridiculous it is that I get so freaked out.”

“I don’t think it’s ridiculous,” said Jack, rigid. “Is this like being a hunter? Are they monsters?”

Sam began to gather up the detritus of their meal, Sam’s still mostly intact. It made Jack’s stomach phantom-growl in sympathy. “No monsters here,” he said firmly, and nudged Jack’s milkshake towards him. “Just some goofballs getting way too serious over some guys in polka dots.”

Jack resumed slurping, then slowly joined Sam by the trashcan. He popped the emptied cup into the overflowing receptacle and patted Sam’s back, the way he’d seen Dean do it. Sam stiffened in surprise.

“I swear,” he said, with frank sincerity, “that I will protect you from the clowns.”

He didn’t expect Sam’s expression to melt into mirth, but he’d take that over blind fear any day.

“Come on,” said Sam, marginally more relaxed. “I think we can squeeze in two or three rides before closing. What do you think?”

Sam towed Jack to the bumper cars next, which Jack only consented to try once he was sure he had Sam in full view the entire time. He drove responsibly around the circuit, occasionally getting spun like a compass needle by teenagers that were intent on ramming their rubber-shielded vehicles into anything remotely still. He thought their strategy was intriguing, but he also thought that if he allowed himself to get too interested in the revelry, he could miss seeing one of the clowns that terrified Sam so badly. Sam would get hurt or _killed_ because of Jack’s negligence, and that was pretty much as bad as if Jack had done the hurting himself. He couldn’t afford to make that kind of mistake.

He left the bumper car as soon as the attendant blew the whistle, and trudged over to Sam, who was waiting at the exit with an overly eager suggestion to visit the High Striker. Jack complied, his insides all knotted up and gurgling as they walked, the sky overhead gathering greyer and greyer clouds. Jack was sinking into a selfish despair, convinced that he was squandering his final opportunity to experience the park, as well as a mostly unburdened Sam. He tried to yank himself back into the present, to ignore the voice in his head that insisted he was failing, and that it was happening because he was wrong inside and out. Who would want someone like that as a friend, or a fellow hunter? Sam wouldn’t, once he realised what heaven and hell and _Dean_ already knew about him.

_I’ll be the one to do it._

Jack was taut as a bowstring when they finally left the arcade. He couldn’t shake his gloom, but he was hoping to redeem his mood – and corresponding behaviour – by having a go at the High Striker, after which Sam decided they would head home. The park was winding down, and they had a long drive back to Lebanon, but Jack also thought Sam saw how much more he was slouching. He was frowning a lot more.

They were therefore slow to approach the dwindling group of people around the base of a thin, twenty-foot tall tower, the side of which was inscribed with numbers. Jack and Sam arrived just in time to hear a resonant _bang_ , followed by several people in the group cheering.

“It’s a game, instead of a ride,” said Sam, to Jack’s questioning eyebrow. “I think you’ll enjoy it. What do you think?”

He was giving him the chance to ask if they could depart early, to relieve the pressure of the day and join the civilians dribbling into the parking lot in rows. It was a generous offer, Jack knew, and one he wouldn’t take. He nodded instead, toughening his resolve, and stepping up to the queue for the game. He was going to have fun if it was the last thing he did, and Sam would be proud of him, and he would tell Dean, and Dean would – Dean would not need to watch him – Dean would change his mind –

“Step right up, step right up,” drawled the attendant, eyes heavy-lidded as he gestured lazily to the patrons in line, urged forward one by one. Jack scooted up after every _bang_ , just as instructed, excitement thrumming through him once more.

“When you get to the front,” Sam told him, over hoots and jeers from the pack of young men immediately before them, “you’ll hit the lever at the bottom of the tower with a hammer. The numbers tell you how strong you are.” He sounded dryly amused at the idea, though Jack wasn’t sure why. He could hit all of those numbers. He could smash them. He was strong, he knew, strong enough to protect Sam.

“I can do that,” he said.

Sam gave him a look. “Of course,” he said. “But remember that it’s just a game, so you don’t have to –,”

“Your turn,” interrupted the attendant, who was beckoning Jack over. He appeared half-asleep as Sam paid and Jack trotted up to collect the massive hammer. “Are you a man or a mouse,” he said in a practised drone, while Jack adopted a ready stance. “Hit hard to prove your worth. Ready-set-go.” He turned away to look at his phone.

“Whenever you’re ready, Jack,” said Sam, though Jack could barely hear him for the rushing in his ears, the chatter of the girls and the couple behind them building to a crescendo in his head. He felt like a live wire, sprung and waiting for a conducive material to explode. The handle of the hammer was slick under his fingers.

Prove your worth, he thought, and he saw a face then: Dean, glaring at him whenever he moved or spoke or touched Sam, suspicious if he ate or didn’t eat or liked occult research or hated it; watching him like a hawk with a vendetta, so sure of his inherent _wrongness_ that Jack had become sure of it, as well; as frightening to Jack as the red eyes and chains that pervaded his dreams at night. No, no, the truth was he was a monster, and monsters were weak, cruel – monsters couldn’t and wouldn’t protect anything that didn’t serve them first –

He swung the hammer, so fast that the air whistled, and brought it down upon the lever; the metal contraption snapped clean in half and the momentum carried the hammer through it, half a foot into the soft grass and soil beneath it.

There was a faint dinging noise far above him, Jack thought, as something thumped onto the ground several feet away. When he blinked a few times through the tears in his eyes and the strange noises around him, he saw that it was a large, round metal bell, like the kind placed on bicycles. It had a crack through the middle.

Jack registered hands on his shoulders, then one disappearing, and the hammer being tugged gently out of his grip. There were a lot of people swimming in his periphery, and their faces were pale or drawn into masks of horror or awe, pointing and yelling and reaching out to yank at his sleeves; Jack wondered that they never made contact – was he having visions? Was he finally losing the beautiful world that God had made, and falling down, down, down where evil things and his father lived?

“Castiel,” he whispered. “I’m scared.”

The hands around him tightened briefly, so quick he must have imagined it, and then he was being bundled inside a box-like space that was darker than it should have been. He could still see the sky through it. There was light behind that ceiling of thick, impenetrable grey. Not much, but it was there.

“Jack. Can you hear me?”

One hand, remaining on his shoulder. He looked up and into Sam’s eyes, blown wide with worry, and absorbed his ashen state, his body hunched low in the driver’s seat of the Impala so he could be on the same level as Jack. He was waiting on him, coiled as though preparing for a fight, or maybe escape.

“I can hear you,” he replied, because it was rude to ignore a direct question. Sam exhaled loudly, leaning back in his seat and raking his nails through his hair. He kept his hold on Jack, like he thought he might fade into mist if he went lax for even a moment.

“Jack,” he said, “I’m sorry.”

This brought him up short. “You – you’re – what?”

Sam released him then, flexing his hand on his knee. “I should have explained it to you better,” he said soberly. “I should have watched over – shit,” he muttered, as faces started to pop into view in the windows and the windshield, people aiming smartphones and accusing fingers at them. Sam started the ignition and gunned the engine, scattering their audience with the roar of it, and then the grinding of wheels on pavement as Sam got them out of the parking lot and onto the road. His movements were jerky as he shifted gears, driving like they were being chased.

“I don’t think they’ll come after us,” Jack said softly, once they had sped through Wichita in near-silence. He was mostly reassuring himself, but Sam heard him too; he slowed little by little until they were comfortably under the speed limit. They watched as the city gave way to suburbs, which smoothed into familiar rolling fields.

“Are you okay?”

Jack nodded, then remembered Sam had to keep an eye on the road. “Yes,” he said. “I’m okay.” There was absolutely nothing physically wrong with him. He was an abomination because of what rested just under his normal-looking skin, forbidding it to bruise.

“Are you sure? Because that –,” Sam took a breath, “back there, it didn’t seem like you were okay.”

Jack quailed. He had revealed his strength, one feature of his supernatural heritage that he had been warned was dangerous to use in front of people. “I’m sorry,” he said faintly. “I’m sorry. Did I hurt someone?”

Sam looked stricken. “No – no, you didn’t hurt anyone,” he said, a tinge of frustration in his tone. “Jack, buddy, talk to me. You were having a good time today, but – what’s going on? You can tell me anything. You know that, right?”

Jack wanted to tell him everything, because he so regularly did; there was little that he was capable of keeping to himself when every day brought a new experience. He could barely last an hour on his own before he was running to inform Sam on a new song he heard or a slang word he didn’t understand. That stuff was easy to talk about. He didn’t know why his fear was so much harder to bring up, but when he tried to, it caught in his throat and stayed there. Maybe he just didn’t want to see Sam’s disappointment in his weakness.

“Jack.” Sam sounded wounded, and it caused an old panic to spike. “Jack, please. If there’s a problem, I need to know.”

Because he was dangerous. It made sense, if in a stinging, sad sort of way.

“I was trying to be strong,” he mumbled. He felt like he was getting smaller and smaller the further they drove, the grey sky like a blanket about to smother him. “If I’m strong I can protect people instead of killing them and I won’t have to die.” He focused on breathing properly. It was a good way to calm down, or so he’d been told.

After a few seconds in which he sucked in shallow breaths that didn’t really fill him at all, he snuck a glance at Sam. His jaw was working, like he was attempting to chew and swallow a very unpleasant food. Like salmon. Jack didn’t particularly care for the sliminess of salmon, and he wondered if his powers grossed Sam out as much.

“Dean said something to you.”

“No,” he said, almost snapped, and Sam’s face fell. “Sorry,” he began again, “but – even if he – I mean, isn’t he right?” He was trembling, he knew.

“No.” Sam’s expression was twisted in the sudden flare of headlights from a car passing by. It was as though someone was stabbing him with the angel blade that hadn’t worked on Jack. “No. He isn’t.”

“But I’m dangerous.”

“We’re all dangerous.” Sam smiled, a crack on the surface, like the crack on the broken bell. “I’m dangerous. So is Dean. We have the ability to hurt innocent people, but we don’t, because it’s wrong. It’s was up to us to make the right choice, and it’ll be up to you do make it too.”

Sam sighed, and Jack was confronted with the image of an old man, a character on television or some civilian on a Kansas street; he could see a similar bowed and bent exhaustion in him just then, like the wrinkles and curved spine were superimposed. He twitched and it was gone, like a second shadow cast by some artificial light.

Sam’s hand reached out, and Jack grabbed it, thinking only that he needed something solid, something warm – like his mother had been, like the grace he’d found in Castiel. It was natural for him to clutch at it. He tried to convince himself of Sam’s words, tried to listen, the way Sam always listened to him.

“I’ll talk to Dean,” murmured Sam. “He knows better.”

Jack was too relieved to argue. He sat back, settling himself more firmly in the seat, and switched on the radio. Sam raised his eyebrows, and Jack could only shrug in response. “Better than the tapes,” he said, and felt another weight slide off his back when Sam huffed.

“Thank you, by the way,” he intoned, when the tension seemed to have bled from Sam’s posture. “For today. It was – it was great. Amazing, actually, until I made that mess.”

He’d flown. Unseen, unwatched, an ordinary person out with their family.

“It wasn’t a mess. Just an accident.”

Jack hummed. “Still,” he said. “Thank you.”

“It was no trouble, Jack,” said Sam quietly. He had both hands on the wheel, the evening descending from overhead, turning him grey as stone. “No trouble at all.”

*

The bunker was dark when they finally swung the Impala into the garage, and Sam flipped on lights as they made their way up into the main library, calling for Dean. They found him by the glow of a dim lamp, bent over Sam’s computer and idly scrolling through Weekly World News Online articles, almost aggressively uninterested.

“Fun trip?” he asked, as Sam nodded to him. “Must’ve been. You didn’t answer many of my texts.”

“Suggesting improbable hunts every half hour wasn’t all that pressing, to be honest,” said Sam, grim. He half-turned towards Jack, his profile limned by the lamplight. “Hey, Jack, you want to wash up for bed?”

Jack knew when he was being dismissed. He padded into to the war room, then the doorway beside the staircase. He felt eyes on his back, burning.

_Eyes watch like everyone watches. Heart angry like no-one else is angry._

That wasn’t the only new thing on his list. He turned around.

“Today was good,” he said to Sam, and in the softening of his expression he could see Six Flags, Disney, Hawaii, and more. Places with names but no image; possibility with potential, but no guarantees.

“We’ll do something even better next time,” Sam replied. He looked content.

“Next time?” Dean’s scorn was like a bad smell. Jack left it behind him, with the turbulence of Sam’s expression and rejoinder – “he can’t stay locked up –,” an opening that had Dean plunging for the kill – “ _he_ is a _bomb_ waiting to go off –,”

He thought about choices. He thought about right, and wrong. He thought about green eyes and red eyes and Sam and Castiel and how he could belong in several places at once, yet none of them at the same time.

Heaven, Hell, or Earth. Human or monster. He was a mixture of opposites.

He held open his palm as he strode to his room, and summoned a surge of energy, a warmth that shot through his veins and accelerated his pace. He carefully lit his path down the winding hallways, to the comics and music he’d abandoned. His shadow danced, mesmerising, on the walls: pitch-black against the brightest gold.


End file.
